Needles to Quartzsite?

I like the Havasu route, it's pretty, but the 17 stoplights can be annoying.

17!!! WOW! Maybe not pulling a 5er.

We did this route two years ago. We chose the Lake Havasu City route.

Mainly to see London Bridge (not worth it). But we also chose that route because we thought it would be more scenic.

Yes, there is some traffic through Lake Havasu City, and it gets a little slow and curvy around the south end of the lake and Parker Dam.

But I still think it was a better choice for the scenery.

For fast . time, go the Ca. route. For the experience and scenery, the Az. route. The stoplights thru Havasu really are not an issue,
This is an issue where the the reverse of the. ' road less traveled ' is less traveled for good reason.

As mentioned, the CA is faster with far less distractions. It's also boring with very limited services. The only real slowdown is if there's an accident or you find yourself behind some slow RVer.

The AZ side is scenic but with that scenic comes more traffic and a heck of a lot more sightseers. You can often find yourself slowing down as someone ahead is creeping along to try and take a picture from their window or lost. On the four lane places it's not a big deal but on the two lane sections, it gets frustrating. Traffic lights are spaced far enough apart that in the areas with them, you either have them all in a row (think passing trough a touristy area of town) or they are so far apart, it can be many miles before you hit some single signal at a intersection leading to another touristy area.

The good part about AZ side is you have services. You have restaurants, service stations, RV campgrounds, shops, and enough company on the road that you wont feel alone.

One often overlooked item of the CA side is you have the option to bypass the whole Havasu and upper Parker area (which are the spots with the most tourist initiated issues for an RVer) by jumping east on CA-62 in Vidal and taking an easy ride into the Q.

we, too, have used both routes and find the AZ side more interesting and scenic.

ItsyRV wrote:
As mentioned, the CA is faster with far less distractions. It's also boring with very limited services. The only real slowdown is if there's an accident or you find yourself behind some slow RVer.

The AZ side is scenic but with that scenic comes more traffic and a heck of a lot more sightseers. You can often find yourself slowing down as someone ahead is creeping along to try and take a picture from their window or lost. On the four lane places it's not a big deal but on the two lane sections, it gets frustrating. Traffic lights are spaced far enough apart that in the areas with them, you either have them all in a row (think passing trough a touristy area of town) or they are so far apart, it can be many miles before you hit some single signal at a intersection leading to another touristy area.

The good part about AZ side is you have services. You have restaurants, service stations, RV campgrounds, shops, and enough company on the road that you wont feel alone.

One often overlooked item of the CA side is you have the option to bypass the whole Havasu and upper Parker area (which are the spots with the most tourist initiated issues for an RVer) by jumping east on CA-62 in Vidal and taking an easy ride into the Q.

So how is CA 62?

freewayrandy wrote:
So how is CA 62?

Boring.

The distance from US 95 in CA to State 95 in AZ is maybe 20 minutes of nothing with 5 minutes of tourist traffic through Parker to where you would have turned had you taken the AZ route through Havasu and upper Parker. After Parker's downtown, it's once again pretty much nothing until the Q.

However, my RV is small and can get up and go pretty fast. As a result, I tend to travels as if in a car which means I also get frustrated when stuck behind slow sightseers and slow RV's. That's why my routes tend to be back country boring because I've seen all the stuff to be seen (multiple times) in the southwest, so I'm more focus on the best hassle free routes.

Now if this is your first venture in these parts, by all means take a leisurely sightseeing trip on the AZ side, making sure your passenger has the camera at the ready because there is much to take in.

Thanks for the info.